


Straconya

by Allamarain



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Isolation, Loneliness, Minor Character Death, Space Wives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21665914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allamarain/pseuds/Allamarain
Summary: The Doctor’s wedding ring slipped off her finger when she regenerated, and fell out of the TARDIS. She will stop at nothing to find it again. What she discovers is the ring has gone to place where no being from this dimension should enter. Set during Series 11.This is a completed work, with expected updates twice weekly.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/River Song
Comments: 20
Kudos: 247





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Ryan saw the Doctor’s facade drop, nobody else noticed.

They were standing in the doorway of the TARDIS, watching twin nebulas form in a binary star system. Ryan hadn’t been big on astronomy in school, never even so much as looked through a telescope. But seeing the clouds of gases up close, swirling through space to birth to dual stars, he was mesmerized. His mouth hung open slightly as he took it all in.  
“I never realized how colorful it would be.“ He managed to say at last.

“It’s all based on fluroescence of different elements. A different color for each one.” The Doctor exclaimed, pointing to it. “Aren’t they amazing?”

Ryan glanced over to Graham, similarly enraptured. In front of him, Yaz was gushing about the nebulas. In front of him, the Doctor who had for once fallen silent. But she wasn’t looking at the nebula. Her head was cast downwards, and she looked depleted, despite the awe and wonder in her voice not even thirty seconds ago. 

He listened to Yaz ramble on while keeping an eye on the Doctor. Her shoulders slumped, she sighed, still looking at the ground. When she finally looked up, he quickly turned his head upward, as if he’d been looking at the nebulas all along. But he wasn’t paying much attention to them any more.

The Doctor was always so perky and bubbly. Full of energy, ready to move at a second’s notice For once, they weren’t being chased by monsters or in mortal danger. She looked deflated, kinetic motion brought to a stop. Troubled. What was going on with her?

In a second, she snapped back to the self he knew. “That was great, right? Come on, fam! Let’s move forward in time and see the same stars as white dwarfs!” With a wide sweep of her arm, she led them back into the console room, coat flowing behind her. Ryan followed slowly, pondering what he’d seen. 

—

In the days that followed, Ryan kept a close eye on the Doctor, and noticed a subtle change from their previous trips with her. She seemed more impatient with them, eager to move from one thing to the next. When she wasn’t she was lost in her thoughts. More than once, he’d had to repeat something he’d asked her because she hadn’t been paying attention. That wasn’t like the woman they’d first met; she’d paid close attention to everything. 

He worried he was imagining things. He didn’t want to talk to Graham about it. Graham was still trying way too hard to ingratiate himself on him, and Ryan didn’t want to give him the impression his techniques were working. He didn’t want to trouble Graham either; he was still having a hard time coping with Nan’s death. Instead, he confided in Yaz.

“Does the Doctor seem a little off to you?” he asked. They were standing at the edge of a pond on a moon wildlife sanctuary, where the Doctor had brought them to view the local fish. 

Yaz frowned. “You noticed it too, huh? She’s not paying attention to where she’s going. Look! She pointed. “She got stuck in the mud!”

The Doctor was on the other side of the pond, bent over, trying to get her boots unstuck. “Do you need help, Doc?” Graham asked.

“No, no, don’t come any closer.” She waved him off with one hand. “Don’t want you getting stuck in here too.” She reached with both hands, pulling and grunting. 

“Just…she seems distracted. She’s in a hurry. She’s talking a lot, but more at us, not to us,” Ryan said.

Yaz gave a slight nod. “I’m sure she’s fine. Maybe that’s just how she is. We haven’t known her that long.”

“That’s true.” Ryan agreed.

The Doctor was still struggling with her boots, the mud having created a suction. “Almost got it...there we go!”. Her foot flew up and she staggered backwards, hopping on one foot, before falling on her back into the mud.

Yaz and Ryan cringed. “We should go help her, yeah?” Yaz said.

“Hope you brought a spare jumper,” Ryan told her as they headed to the other side of the pond. Yaz had a point. How well did they know the Doctor? But he still had a nagging feeling something was wrong.

—  
“All right, then, back in Sheffield. Off you go.” The Doctor announced, as the groans of the TARDIS still echoed in Ryan’s ears. This was also new; she usually seemed reluctant to leave them when they stopped off at home. This time, she couldn’t be wait to be rid of them.

Graham stepped out of the ship and checked his phone, studying the screen. “No messages” he sighed, speaking to no one in particular. Before they’d left, he’d left voicemails for some of his mates, fellow bus drivers about catching up with him. None of them had called back. It meant spending long hours home by himself, Ryan being only minimal company. 

Addressing the Doctor, he asked, “We’ll see you next Thursday, right?”

“Right! Can’t wait.” She was smiling, but it looked plastic and fake to Ryan. He knew that look well. He’d seen it a lot after his mother died, from grownups who told him his father was definitely coming back for him. A smile that was holding something back.

He leaned over and whispered to Yaz, “Does it seem like she wants to get rid of us?”

“She does seem impatient today.” She shot a glance back at the Doctor, who was standing at the door, hands on her hips. “She’s probably just...busy. Alien stuff to do. Maybe she saves worlds without us sometimes.” She smiled at the thought.

“Should we talk to her? Maybe she doesn’t want to travel with us anymore?” They’d invited themselves, after all, and she’d tried to warn them off. What if she’d grown tired of them? Humans were probably boring, compared to all the incredible beings out in the universe. 

Yaz’s frown turned to a look of horror. “No! I’m sure she does.” 

Ryan didn’t want to stop traveling with the Doctor either, but he wanted to be sure. “We should talk to her.” He told Yaz. 

“Now?” she looked at her watch. “I really need to get to work. I’ve been late the last two shifts. If I’m late again I get written up.”

“I’ll talk to her then.” He hated the thought of it, of going back to his old life, but he wasn’t going to stay in a place where he wasn’t wanted. He approached the Doctor, who was bouncing at the balls of her feet. Yaz watched them, eyes darting to the door, but not moving. 

“Hey, Doctor. Everything okay?” he tried to sound casual.

“Yeah! Fine! Just got a lot to do around the TARDIS. She doesn’t repair herself. Well, actually she does, but sometimes she needs a little help.” The words rushed out of her faster than a bullet train.

“You’re okay with having us aboard, right?” he asked. “Because if you’re not…”

“Oh, no, don’t say that! Of course I like having you here!” she looked aghast at the thought. “You’re not…thinkin’ about leaving, are you? There’s so much more I want to show you!”

“No, no, no, nothing like that. I just wanted to make sure we weren’t overstaying our welcome.”

“Ryan Sinclair, not at all. You are wonderful company. All of you.” Her smile this time was genuine. “But, I do want to get to these repairs. See you later?” She nodded towards the door.

“Yeah. Bye, Doctor.” The door slammed shut behind he and Yaz as they walked out. Within seconds, the TARDIS wheezed out of existence.

“That was weird. Feels like she’s hiding something from us.” Ryan said. 

“Well, maybe she doesn’t have to tell us everything going on with her,” Yaz said. “Isn’t that right, Graham?”

“Sorry, what?” he asked.

“Didn’t you notice how weird the Doctor was acting on this trip?” Ryan said.

Graham shrugged. “She always acts weird.”

“No, I mean, like, didn’t you see how she was in a big hurry to leave us today?” 

“I don’t think she was. You’re imagining things, son.” He noticed as Ryan tried not to flinch at the word. Maybe the Doctor was acting weirder than usual, but the thought of having to leave the TARDIS felt unthinkable, especially now. 

“Well, what should we do?” Ryan asked.

“We can’t do anything right now. She’s gone.” Yaz started briskly walking to her flat. “And I can’t talk about this any more right now. I need to get to work.” 

—

Not only did Yaz end up being late for work, she got a lecture when she dashed into their flat to change. Her mum went on at length about how she was never home any more, and she wasn’t doing her share of household chores. Of course, Yaz couldn’t tell her where she’d actually been, so she had no choice but to sit through Mum’s complaints, ready to sprint away as soon as she was done. 

When she got to work, not only did she get written up, she got an assignment she hated: posted along a road looking out for moving violations. She always got people arguing with her that they hadn’t really been going that fast. Particularly older men who thought they could swing their weight around, because she was a woman. But even worse than them were the drunks. They would swerve all over the road, then swear up and down they’d only had one pint at the pub. Right before they passed out on the asphalt.

She sat in her squad car, still annoyed hours later. She’d asked the Doctor to drop them off earlier, with more time before her shifts, but she’d said time travel could be a little imprecise, and it was hard to pinpoint an exact time; she did her best. And then there was Ryan worrying the Doctor was acting weird, and seemed to not want them around. Yaz hated the thought of it. They’d only barely begun to see the universe. On top of that, getting lectured by her mum-it had not been her day. Not at all.

She turned the heat up in the car. The nights were getting chillier. She wondered if she could get away with going for a coffee run. It was nearly midnight, and the traffic had dissipated. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by a crackling over the radio. “PC Khan?”

“Yes?” she answered.

“Can you head over to 44 Oak Street? There’s someone there specifically asking for you.” The dispatcher sounded confused. “A trespasser. Sergeant Daniels is at the scene.”

“Did you get a name?”

“She won’t give one.”

“I’m on my way.” Yaz shifted the car into drive. _Oh no, it’s Sonya_ , she thought. She had a habit of sneaking out past curfew. Yaz had agreed to keep quiet in exchange for more bathroom time in the mornings. But if she got busted for underage drinking or whatever she and her knob friends did, there was no keeping the lid on that. What would Mum and Dad say? They’d probably find a way to blame Yaz for that, too. She didn’t know Daniels well, but he seemed like the grandfatherly type. Maybe she could talk him into letting Sonya go.

The address was a white bungalow tucked away at the end of a lane. She knew she was in the right place when saw another squad car pulled in front of the house, and caught a glimpse of a high-vis vest in the side yard. Picking up her pace, she walked through the gate.

Her mouth dropped open in shock.

The arrestee was not her sister. Standing in the yard with Daniels was a middle aged man in his pajamas and a certain blonde alien, her wrists handcuffed in front of her. She wasn’t wearing her coat, and there was a miner’s headlight strapped across her forehead. 

Suddenly, her day was much worse.


	2. Chapter 2

Yaz’s head was full of so many questions, she didn’t know what to ask first.

What in the world was the Doctor doing here? She was supposed to have left. Had she found aliens or some kind of danger on Earth? More giant spiders? Her concern about the planet was being in danger was tinged witht hurt she and the guys hadn’t been included in checking it out. Was Ryan right? Maybe she didn’t want them around any more.

What had she told Daniels and the man in pajamas? Had they discovered the Doctor was an alien? Is that why they had arrested her? Yaz imagined the Doctor seized by the government for ghastly experiments, and the thought made her blood run cold.

“Hi Yaz!” the Doctor interrupted her thoughts. Her smile was relaxed, strangely confident for someone in handcuffs. She waved as best as she could with her hands cuffed, as if waving Yaz over to her table in a cafe. The Doctor’s hands were covered in dirt.

“Doctor!” she replied. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, bit of a misunderstanding,” she shrugged.

“Ya call this a misunderstanding?!!” The man in pajamas broke in. “She was diggin’ up me garden! All my vegetables are tossed everywhere!” He gestured to the ground. Yaz scanned the ground. In the garden were several holes, along with turnips and carrots lying about, but nothing else out of the ordinary. Was there something dangerous in the dirt?

“Now, Mr. Stone, calm down, I’m sure we can figure this out.” Daniels said in a soothing tone.” Can you repeat to PC Khan what you told me?”

“I went to let m’ cat out!” his eyes were wide as he spoke, “And I saw her! Makin’ a huge mess of m’ yard! Diggin’ in m’ garden with her bare hands! Told her to stop and she wouldn’t! So I called the coppers!”

“I arrived ten minutes ago.” said Daniels. “Asked her what she was doing and she got pretty indignant. Wouldn’t cooperate. Wouldn’t even tell us her name. Kept saying she’s a doctor. Started rambling on about a bunch of gobbledygook about energy readings.” he lowered his voice and leaned close to Yaz’s ear. “Seems a bit mad. Do you know her?”

“We’re friends. Let me talk to her.” Yaz approached her. “Umm, hi Doctor. What are you doing in Mr. Stone’s yard?”

“Just looking for something.” She sounded nonchalant. “Tracked it here. Haven’t found it yet, but I was hot on the trail, so if you’ll undo these handcuffs I can get back to it.” She held up her wrists. Whatever she was searching for, Yaz hoped it wasn’t toxic, radioactive, or explosive.

“Ma’am, you can’t go around digging in other people’s yards.” Daniels said in a tone of light admonishment. “What is it you’re looking for? Perhaps we can help.”

The Doctor’s expression suddenly darkened. “I can’t tell you. Not that a simple mind like yours would understand, anyway.”

Daniels frowned in a tight line. From what little Yaz knew of Daniels, not much rattled him. But it appeared the Doctor had struck a nerve. She needed to act before he hauled her off to the station. Then there would be many more questions she couldn’t answer.

“Daniels,” she put on her most authoritative tone. “Let me take her home. I know where she lives. She can be a little eccentric, get a bit confused at times….”

“Oi!” interrupted the Doctor.

“...but she didn’t mean any harm. She’s not dangerous. Really.” she emphasized the last word.

“Not dangerous my ass!” Stone exclaimed. “She’s a menace to turnips!”

Daniels glared at Stone, daring him to say something further, before turning back to Yaz. He looked like he wanted to believe her, but had some nagging doubts. He picked up a small box off the ground, ”She was holding this when we found her. It was emitting a beep, but it seems to have stopped now. Worried it might be a weapon of some sort, or a bomb.” He handed the dirt-encrusted box to Yaz, “Have you seen this before?”

Yaz held the box up to eye level for a closer examination. It looked like a Rubik’s cube, but with small, blinking lights. “Oh..yeah” she lied. “It’s a...present for my little cousin. She likes to build things that light up,” she hastily added. 

“Is that so?” Daniels raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah! He’s going to love it! I’ll just hang on to it for him.” She dropped the cube in her coat pocket, praying it wasn’t actually dangerous. She glanced over at the Doctor, who was surreptitiously giving her a smile of encouragement. 

“Guess that’s all settled then, we’ll be on our way.” _Please let us go. I don’ t want to have to explain anything else_.

“I would, PC Khan,” Daniels furrowed his brow. “But Mr. Stone looks pretty set on pressing charges.” 

“Charges, yeah!” he pointed to the Doctor “And I’ll sue ya! I’ll take ya to small claims court for all the turnips you destroyed!”

Yaz stifled her laughter at going to court over ￡20 in veg. In her sweetest voice, she said, “Mr. Stone, I’m really sorry about your garden. But I think the Doctor here just got confused about where she was. I’ll personally make sure she never bothers you again.”

Stone’s demeanor softened. “You sure about that? ‘Cos if I see her back here…”

“She won’t” Yaz gave him her best smile, hoping she was being convincing.

Daniels shifted his weight. “PC Khan, Is there someone who can look after her? Don’t want her wandering off again.”

“Oh, yes! Definitely. I’ll take her to my place. My mum can keep an eye on her.” Yaz assured him. “She knows the Doctor very well. Besides, it’s not like she started attacking people, right?”

“Well...she wasn’t cooperative.” His eyes flicked over to the Doctor. “But you’re right. She didn’t hurt anyone. Still…” he trailed off, studying her again. The Doctor gave him a hopeful smile. Finally, he said. “All right, then. Just this once” He unlocked the handcuffs. “Ma’am, if I ever see you trespassing in this neighborhood again, we won’t be calling PC Khan or anyone else. You’ll be headed straight off to the station.”

The Doctor rubbed her wrists and started to thank him, but she was cut off as Yaz gripped her elbow and pulled her away. She led the Doctor to her patrol vehicle, and opened the back door to let her in. The Doctor took the mining lamp off her head before ducking inside.

As soon as Yaz slid into the driver’s seat, the Doctor said, “Thanks Yaz! I owe ya one. Left my coat in the TARDIS, completely forgot my psychic paper was in the pocket. Anyway, the TARDIS is right across the field. Drop me off and I’ll be on my way!”

“We’re not going back to the TARDIS now, Doctor.” Yaz used her best police officer tone on her as she pulled away from the curb. She’d had enough shenanigans today, and she was going to get some answers. She glanced in the rearview mirror, looking for Daniels, to make sure he didn’t happen to be following them. No sign of any police cars behind her.

“Oh, are we going to see your mum, then, like you said? Brilliant!” The Doctor relaxed into the seat.

“We’re not going to see Mum! Just be quiet!” The sharpness of Yaz’s town surprised even her; she had never taken that tone with the Doctor. From the rearview mirror, she could see the Doctor was just as surprised, as she stared in shocked silence. 

Without another word, Yaz drove around until she found a side street, largely bare of cars. After pulling over, she whirled around. “What was all that about? What were you looking for?! ”

“Oh, nothing.” The Doctor maintained the casualness she’d shown in the garden. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Are there aliens nearby? Are we in danger?” A touch of fear crept into her voice.

“No. Nothin’ dangerous. Nothing you need to worry about.” Her posture didn’t change. She seemed almost bored with the conversation, which infuriated Yaz even further.

“Then what were you doing digging up someone’s garden in the middle of the night?! That’s considered rude on Earth!” 

“I know, I know.” She rolled her eyes. “Spent a lot of time on Earth. Just caught a signal of something and got excited. Didn’t think about the consequences.” 

To be fair, that described a lot of what the Doctor did. But no matter how much the she tried to pass it off, Yaz was undeterred. “So you got all excited over absolutely nothing?”

The Doctor met her eyes with a steely gaze, lips in a tight line, yielding nothing.

“What kind of signal? Was it from that cube?”

More silence.

Yaz threw up her hands, exasperated. “Doctor, you’ve not been acting like yourself lately! You practically shoved us out of the TARDIS today, and now you’re being all secretive with me! Why can’t you tell me what’s going on?”

Breaking her gaze, the Doctor looked out the window into the darkness. “It’s...personal.” her voice was quiet and filled with anguish, a tone of melancholy Yaz had never heard from her before. “Not something I want to get into.”

In that moment, Yaz realized she didn’t know that much about the Doctor. She talked a lot about the places they went to, and people she met, but she only talked about herself in snippets, random facts that were mostly trivial. Where had she come from? What had she been doing before crashing through that train? She’d just said she’d spent a lot of time on Earth. How long had she been coming here? 

She looked at the figure sitting in the backseat. The Doctor was physically unimposing, especially when she wasn’t wearing her coat, but she always seemed larger than life. In that moment, she looked so small. Yaz decided to try a softer approach, “Doctor, I can help you. Friends help each other out. We’re friends, right?”

“Yeah, of course.” the Doctor slowly met her eyes, nodding in reluctant agreement. 

“Well?” A part of her argued she was pushing too hard, the Doctor didn’t owe her an explanation of her past. But bailing her out from Stone’s yard, she thought she deserved one. Above all else, she was worried. 

“All right, then.” The Doctor paused, as if she’d gotten stuck in her thoughts. She looked down at the floorboards. Finally, she said in a low voice,“My hands are too small.”

“What?” It wasn’t the answer Yaz was expecting.

“Too small. Smaller than before. Before I met you, I’d looked really...different.”

“A white-haired Scotsman.” Yaz remembered. Their conversation from the train when they’d first met. At the time, she’d written it off as nonsensical ramblings.

“Right. He had larger hands.” She held up her hands, studying them. “And when I regenerated, my wedding ring fell off.”

Yaz’s mouth hung open. She was about to ask about what regenerated entailed, but was shocked. Wedding ring? The Doctor was married?

“It fell off, and when the TARDIS blew up, everything in the console room went out the door, including me. I didn’t see the ring, but it must have fallen because there’s no sign of it in the TARDIS.” Her words were coming faster now, her usual rate of speaking. “Looked for it with the drogocenium detector. Not a trace.” 

“Drogo-what?” 

“Drogocenium. An extremely rare element only found in a few galaxies, and even then, just a handful. None in the Milky Way at all. My wife insisted on putting drogocenium in the ring, because someone like me was just as rare.” she smiled a little at the memory, a mix of nostalgia and regret.

The Doctor has a wife. Yaz repeated to herself, but she was still unable to absorb the knowledge. “She sounds incredible.” 

The Doctor’s face fell. “She was.”

 _Was._ If the Doctor was referring to her in the past tense… “Is she..” She asked without thinking

“Dead, yeah.” her voice was barely above a whisper. 

No wonder she didn’t want to talk about it. Then Yaz remembered the cube in her pocket, and pulled it out. “And this is the drogocenium detector?”

“Yes! Clever, Yaz.” She was suddenly energetic again, distracted from the topic of her wife. “I’ve been lookin’ all over Sheffield, thinking it must have fallen to the ground, but I haven’t picked up any signals until tonight. That’s why I got so excited and forgot my coat.” Her smile cast downwards. “Except it wasn’t there. I dug right on the spot and there was no ring. I was going to keep tracking the signal until that sod in his pajamas showed up.” 

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” Yaz said. She wasn’t sure what else to say, and even _sorry_ seemed tiny and useless. 

She turned over the cube in her hands. “That’s really weird. When the police officer took it from me, I thought he’d turned it off by mistake. 

“And there really odd part,” she continued without acknowledging Yaz “is it _stopped_ beeping. I thought the other police officer turned it off by mistake, but he didn’t. It should have kept beeping as long as it was in the vicinity of the ring. Why would it be there and not be there? Nothing else in the area was disturbed. Don’t understand it,” she was mostly talking to herself. “Why would the drogocenium detector say the ring was there if it wasn’t? Something’s not right.”

Yaz had no idea how to troubleshoot an extraterrestrial metal detector, but she wanted to be helpful in any way she could. “Maybe it’s not working?”

“Tried it out before I left. But maybe I should take another look.” She gave Yaz a gentle smile. “Can I go back to my TARDIS now, PC Khan?”

She laughed softly, “Yeah, I’ll take you back. I should get back to my post anyway. Promise you won’t get the cops called on you again?”

“Promise.” She gave Yaz a solemn look.

Neither women said much during the drive back. When they stopped, Yaz hesitated with her finger on the door locks. She turned back to the Doctor. She was smiling, but also glancing at the TARDIS, as though she couldn’t wait to escape. “Doctor, if you ever want help with finding your ring-or if you want to just talk, let me know.” It sounded so trite and ridiculous. She wished there was something more she could offer, anything. 

“Thanks Yaz. I’ll tell you if I need your help.” She gave her a gentle smile, but her eyes were still darting towards the door. “I’ll see you soon.”

Yaz watched as she bolted out of the car and through the TARDIS doors. She drove away, the knowledge of the Doctor’s past weighing on her heart and mind. 

\--  
Yaz wasn’t sure what to expect from the Doctor the next time she saw her. What she wasn’t expecting was the TARDIS in front of Park Hill Estate to appear a day ahead of schedule.

During the ensuing days, she’d spent a lot of time thinking about what she’d learned. The Doctor’s wife. She couldn’t imagine the Doctor doing something as ordinary as getting married. Was she also an alien? The same species as the Doctor? A different one? How long had she been married? How did they meet? She’d texted Ryan and Graham the night after she saw the Doctor, and was met with equal incredulity at her being married. Ryan had asked her a bunch of questions that she couldn’t answer. Graham didn’t say much, except to point out she’d lost a wife,like him.

She’d just come from the gym, crossing through the parking lot, when she caught sight of the blue box. At first, she thought she’d gotten the day wrong. But no, it was only Wednesday. She tentatively knocked on the door, three short raps.

The Doctor answered, wearing a leather apron and a welding helmet. “Yaz!” she sounded surprised. “How did you get here?”

“I live here.”

The Doctor flipped up her helmet and stepped out of the TARDIS, taking a look around. “Oh. Didn’t realize I was in Sheffield. I told the TARDIS to take me someplace where I could work, and I think she just came here out of habit.” 

That explained why she was here early. “Oh, I didn’t mean to disturb you. Do you want me to let you get back to work?”

“Not yet.” The Doctor grabbed her arm and pulled her into the TARDIS, her smile from ear to ear. “I think I’ve found my ring!”

“That’s great news!” Yaz said.”Where is it?”

She practically bounced back into the console room. “Right where I thought it was! The signals we picked up the other night were right after all.”

“Oh no!” said Yaz. “It was in Mr. Stone’s garden, after all?” She was worried about facing him again, not to mention explaining this to Daniels.

“No, it never was. In fact, it wasn’t even in this world.”

“But you just said the signals from the detector were right. That the ring was there.” 

“It was-and it wasn’t.” The Doctor said.

“Not really following you here, Doctor.”

The Doctor walked around the console room taking great strides as she talked. “Among other, sophisticated civilizations, there have always been whispers, rumors of another dimension, a universe overlaid on this one.”

She ignored the slight at humans. “What do you mean? I still don’t understand.”

The Doctor took out her pen and started drawing on the wall of the TARDIS. “Picture this-another world, moving past ours, like a blanketing fog.” She drew squiggly lines to represent the fog. “ That’s not really what it’s like, but it’s close enough for you to understand. It occupies another space, we can’t see or interact with it at all. But every so often, a tiny opening between the two worlds occurs. Like a branch poking through the fog. And when that happens,things-small things, small enough to fit-get pulled through. Ever lose something, like a pair of earbuds, hair ties, a favorite shirt? Socks! Seems to love socks for some reason! And you search and you search and you turn your ship, err, home, upside down, and you can’t find it? That’s where they go.” She emphasized the squiggly marks with a tap-tap-tap of the pen. 

“And that’s where your ring went?” she asked..

“Yeah,” The Doctor nodded. “When I picked up the drogocenium signal, it must have been through another opening between the dimensions. That’s what I was reading, not that the ring was here on Earth.” The TARDIS emitted some whining noises “Yes, I”m sorry for writing on you. I’ll fix it.’ She picked up the sonic and with a wave, the drawing disappeared. “I took some more measurements with the TARDIS and it confirmed a gap between dimensions.” She lowered her voice. “It’s known by many names, but the most common is Straconya-the Dimension of the Lost.” 

Yaz let the words sink in. She only partially understood the explanation. “So what’s in this dimension of the lost?”

“No idea.”

“Can you get there?”

“I’m not completely sure yet. And if I do, it’s extremely risky.” her eyes darkened. “No one who’s gone there has ever come back.”  



	3. Chapter 3

Yaz felt a chill down his spine at the last sentence. “Wait, Doctor.” Yaz said, “If no one’s ever come back, what makes you thnk you can?”

“Other people, races, they didn’t have a TARDIS.” She said triumphantly. “And those that did, they didn’t know how to drive it like I do.”

Yaz thought the Doctor didn’t actually drive the TARDIS very well. She was arguing with it all the time; it seemed more like a stubborn child than a time machine. She was tempted to point that out, but she also wanted to hear the rest of this. “Go on.”

“It’s simple, really.” She rested her hand on one of the crystal pillars. “Find one of the openings between Straconya and our world. Then, I can use dimensional stabilizers to prop it open, at least for a little bit.”

“Like an interdimensional door stopper?” Yaz said.

“Exactly! Five points to Yaz!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Won’t be able to hold it open very long, but that and the drogocenium detector will give me enough time to find my ring.” She faltered a bit. “It should. Probably.” 

Yaz looked at the Doctor, her heart aching. Finding her ring clearly meant the world to her. The Doctor had given her so much, taken her to see new planets, travel in time, saved her life countless times, and asked for nothing in return. The very least she could do was offer to lend a hand.

“Do you want some help?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It’s still pretty dangerous, Yaz.” She pursed her lips. But there was a glint of excitement in her eyes. The feeling of something new, something yet unseen in the universe, and being the first to do so.

Yaz took that as a sign to persist. The Doctor was always warning them about things being dangerous, and they’d always survived. “But having another person will help, right? Or two, or three?” she added, thinking of Ryan and Graham. “You could get hurt.” 

Her hesitation gave way to a tentative grin. “I suppose.” 

Yaz grinned. “Great! I’ll get Ryan and Graham. I’m sure they’ll want to come.”

-  
Leaving the Doctor to finish what she was doing, Yaz texted Ryan, who invited her over. There, she explained the Doctor’s discovery about Straconya. Ryan was nodding and smiling, but Graham looked skeptical. 

“So, the plan is to pop into this other dimension, find the ring, and head back out. But she’s only got so much time, and I thought it’d be better if we all went to help her.” She explained. “She’s got a thing to detect it and everything.”

“Yeah, I’m on board with that,” Ryan said. He was always willing to help out someone-especially a friend. Besides, he was relieved to have a solution to the Doctor’s odd behavior. 

Graham, on the other hand, was still not convinced. “I don’t know Yaz. All this fuss over a trinket?” Graham frowned. “This seems way too risky.”

Yaz’s face fell. It hadn’t been the reaction she’d expecting. She’d thought of all people, he’d want to help the Doctor. “Look, she says it’s dangerous, and it probably is a little. But she always says that. Besides, it’s hardly a trinket. It’s her wedding ring.It’s all she has left of her wife.”

His arms were crossed. “It sounds like a bad idea.”

“But we do things as a team, right guys? Team TARDIS. “ She tried. “If it was your ring…”

“Which is right here on my finger, thank you very much.” He snapped, holding up his left hand. ”I don’t go around misplacing it.” Anger flashed across his eyes. Yaz was taken aback. What had gotten into him? 

Before she could say anything else, Ryan said, “Graham, calm down. If you want to stay home, you can. Yaz and I will go with the Doctor.”

Graham opened his mouth, as if he were about to say something, but no sound came out. He looked at Ryan, and then he looked back in the direction of the house. Ryan was dead set on going, and he knew from experience the boy was plenty stubborn. He thought of moving through empty rooms, possibly for days. A cycle of waking, eating, sleeping, with nothing to mark one day from the next. Even though he and Ryan didn’t talk much at home, his being there felt reassuring.

Plus, Grace would come back from the dead and kill him if anything happened to Ryan.

“All right. I’ll come.” He huffed. 

Yaz was as perplexed by his sudden reversal as she was his initial reaction, but she didn’t want to poke him further. She pasted on a smile. “Great! I told the Doctor we’d meet her at the TARDIS.” 

—  
Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor was still wearing her welding outfit. She was bent over the console, focused on a pulling apart a tangle of wires. She didn’t even look up. “Hey team! Just makin’ a few adjustments. I need to run the dimensional stabilizers through the main power relays. Shouldn’t take much longer.” 

“Take your time,” Ryan replied with an easy smile. The console room seemed to be buzzing with electricity. He’d always noticed a slight hum before, a subtle vibration under his feet, but this felt more intense, as if the TARDIS was on low volume and someone had just cranked up the sound. The Doctor said the TARDIS was a living thing. Was there some sort of change she’d made, or did the ship sense what they were about to undertake? “Anything we can do to help?”

Still immersed in the wires, she said, “Your help in looking for my ring is more than I could ask. Really appreciate it.” Her voice was cheery, like her usual self, Ryan thought, but with an edge of excitement.

“It’s no problem, right guys?” Yaz nodded eagerly, but Graham only gave a slight jerk of his head. He was still in a sullen mood. He’d thought Graham would be in a better mood aboard the TARDIS, since he usually tended to be happier here than at home. He tended to complain a lot, especially when things didn’t go to plan, but he was unusually grumpy-and they hadn’t even left Earth yet.

The Doctor flipped up her helmet. “Looks like we’re all set up here. I need to go to the engine room. One final check before we set off.” With quick steps, she headed down the corridor.

The humans stood around the console room in an unusual, uneasy silence. Graham spoke first. “Why aren’t there any chairs in here? There’s nowhere to sit!”

Yaz felt a tinge of alarm. She’d never seen Graham like that. She asked Ryan in a low voice, “What’s going on with him?”

He shrugged. “Not a clue. Maybe we should ask him to stay back.”

“Don’t be daft.” She said. “We stick together, and he’d said he’d come. Did you notice anything unusual at home the last few days?”

“No, not really.” Truth be told, he didn’t spend much time with Graham when they were at home. Well, home was relative. Even though he’d lived there the last three years, it didn’t really feel like his home; it was the place he stayed with Nan. And with her gone, he felt he didn’t have a place there. He mostly saw his friends and stayed in his room. He only occasionally saw Graham when he prepped a quick meal in the kitchen. 

“Well, something’s not right.” Yaz frowned. “Let me go talk to him.”

“Yaz, no…” Ryan was about to tell her to stop, to let Graham get over whatever was bothering him on his own. That’s what usually worked for him. But before he could stop her, she was tapping his shoulder. 

“What’s up with you today?” she asked.

“What?” he met her gaze, challenging her. “I came with you lot, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but you didn’t want to. Why not?” Saying nothing, Graham turned away. “Of all of us, I’d think you would be the one most eager to help the Doctor. You know what she’s been through with losing her wife.”

“And you are all so eager to help her,” he replied. “But who is helping me? No one!”

“What are you talking about?” she was appalled. “We’re all here for you. And look at all the people who came to Grace’s funeral.”

“Months ago!” he was nearly shouting. “And now nobody mentions her anymore. No one asks me how I’m doing. You want me to help the Doctor because her wife is dead, and you act like mine doesn’t exist!”

“That’s not true!” Yaz fired back. She didn’t take this attitude from her fellow officers, and she sure as hell wasn’t taking it from Graham. 

“It’s not? When was the last time you mentioned her? Either of you? ” He was full-on shouting now, his voice echoing through the console room, lips curled, daring her to keep challenging him. “You don’t know anything about me, or what I’ve been through!”

“How dare you…” 

Before she could finish, Ryan interrupted. “Guys, let’s not fight. It’s not going to help. We’re a team, right?”

Yaz’s cheeks were still flashed red with anger, breathing heavily. She looked to Graham, about to speak, but didn’t trust herself. She turned to Ryan. “He needs to apologize.”

“Graham?”

“Sorry, Yaz,” Graham mumbled, almost a snarl. and stomped off to another corner of the console room. He heard the Ryan talking to Yaz in hushed tones, probably about him, but at the moment, he didn’t care what they were saying. 

He’d gone off a bit, yeah, but what did Yaz possibly understand? She was just a young girl, barely more than a child. Sure, people came out of the woodwork for Grace’s funeral. So many people had loved her. And at first, they’d checked in with him, even members of her family, to see how he was doing. Little by little, they’d stopped. It had been five months since she’d died, and nobody from her family, or their friends, had called him in weeks. Except for Ryan, but he didn’t like to talk about Grace, no matter how much he’d prodded. When he brought her up to his friends, they looked away, uncomfortable. They’d gone on with their lives, but how was he supposed to go on with his? Was he supposed to forget her?

His thoughts were interrupted when the Doctor came striding back into the console room. She’d removed her welding gear and was carrying a large metal cube. “All set! I’’ve also built a second drogocenium detector, so we can cover more ground.” She looked around casting a wary eye at her mates, who were on opposite sides of the room. “Everything okay in here?”

“We’re good.” Yaz piped up before the men could say anything. 

“Right then, “ There was a hint of skepticism in her voice. “The interdimensional stabilizers will maintain an opening for us, to get back to our dimension, but they only have so much power. We have two, maybe three, hours at most, and then we’ll have to leave or we’ll get stuck there forever.”She looked grim. “We’ll be…lost as well.” 

Ryan looked over at Graham to see his reaction. He’d expected a protest, or at least disdain, but instead saw a look of resignation. 

“All right then, off we go.” She put down the detector, suddenly smiling as if she couldn’t wait to head off. She leaned over the console. “This could get a little bumpy. Might want to hang onto something.” 

She pulled the lever and the TARDIS engines came to life. The ship immediately lurched to one side, sending Yaz’s fingers slid off the crystal pillar’s smooth surface. She calwed at it, trying to get a grip. She looked over to Ryan, who was having the same problem. The TARDIS lurched again and she held on to the sides of the pillar as tightly as she could, hoping her hands didn’t slip. She twisted her head around to see the Doctor bent over the console, furiously working the controls. 

“Sorry!” she cried. “Tryin’ to take her to a place she’s not supposed to be, and she doesn’t like it!”

The TARDIS rocked to the other side, sending Yaz face first into the pillar. Her forehead and nose hurt from slamming against it. She was about to touh her face and check for bleeding, but the pitch changed again. 

The ship kept lurching, back and forth, the engines getting louder and louder. They’d had a bumpy ride in the TARDIS now and then, but this was more severe, more brutal than they’d ever been through before. This trip made airplane turbulence feel like a kiddie coaster. She kept twisting her neck to look at the Doctor, who was holding onto the console to keep from falling as she moved around the console. She was shouting, but Yaz couldn’t make out what she said over the roar of the engines. Her fingers blanched as she held onto the pillar, desperate to hold not, to keep from being thrown around. The violent motion was making her nauseous. She closed her eyes; praying she wouldn’t throw up. 

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the TARDIS stopped rocking, its presence a quiet hum. Yaz felt the vibrations of the engines under her feet reduced to a soft hum. She kept a hand on to the pillar, hesitant to let go, in case the movement started again. 

The Doctor wiped her brow, surveying her friends. “Everyone all right?”

Yaz nodded, finally allowing herself to let go of the pillar. She half expected to have left fingerprints in it. She turned around, steadying her breath. The Doctor’s hair was disheveled, but she strode through the TARDIS as if nothing had happened. Opposite the console, Ryan was giving Graham a hand off the floor, the older man complaining about his back. She turned away. She didn’t want to talk to him right now. 

The Doctor pulled a monitor on a metal arm towards her. A smile spread slowly across her face. “We’re here. We made it. Straconya.”


	4. Chapter 4

The first they saw when they opened the door was blackness. Complete and total blackness. Yaz had never seen anything so dark. Not even when her family had gone to the countryside on holiday, she stayed up late looking up at the sky. Then, there were at least stars.

Here, there was nothing. Looking into the blackness, she felt like she was staring into oblivion. She took a small step backwards, into the TARDIS, back into existence. She moved out the way awkwardly when Graham came to look.

The Doctor was already at the console after a quick glance outside. “Goin’ to turn up the ambient light on the TARDIS-give us a better view.” As she rushed back to the doorway, a glow came from the walls, and they could see their surroundings. 

What they saw looked like a cavern, though with high ceilings. A large hill loomed in front of them, covered in dirt. A few smaller piles of-junk? Lost objects?-were scattered about. Looking up, they could see stalactites hanging from the ceiling. 

Ryan peered out of the door, standing at the threshold. “I didn’t know another dimension would be so full of dirt,” he remarked. “Where did it come from?”

The Doctor crouched down, brushing her finger against the ground and lifting it to her mouth, tasting the dirt.“Degradation. All the things that were lost and came here would degrade.” Ryan made a face. _She ate the dirt?_

The Doctor rushed back to the monitor, nose scrunched in thought. 

“What about plastic bottles and things like that? Don’t they get lost?”

“Given enough time, everything degrades,” she said. “And time may not work here the same as it does in our dimension.”

“This place is huge, Doc,” Graham hadn’t stopped looking out of the TARDIS, since she turned up the lights, his eyes wide. “How can we find anything at all in here?”

“That’s why we have the drogocenium detectors.” Picking up a cube off the floor where it had fallen during the flight, she handed it to him.“Just hold it up. It’ll beep if you’re close. When it beeps really, really fast, you’ll be right on top of it. Doubt there’s another wedding ring with drogocenium here.”

“What does the ring look like?” Ryan asked.

“Gold, double band, with a green stone.” She briefly looked wistful, then brightened up. “Head this way with Ryan,” she pointed in front of them. “Yaz and I will head in the opposite direction.”

“How are we going to see anything?” Graham asked.

“I’ve got torches for everyone,” she assured him. “Now, legend has it Straconya is inhabited by monsters. Nobody knows what they are or what they look like, so keep your eyes out for anything. I want you all to be very, very careful. I’ll leave the TARDIS lighting system on so you can find it.” 

Yaz looked back into the cavern, beyond the light of the TARDIS, into the darkness ahead. She was wishing she had stayed home. She pulled out her phone. “No signal here, I’m guessing. How much time do we have?”

“Two hours. We’ll meet back here then.” The Doctor replied.” Everyone ready?” she said. The humans set timers on their phones, and headed out.

—  
Ryan and Graham walked slowly, taking in the cavern. There wasn’t much to see, necessarily, but they didn’t want to miss a thing. Every so often, he looked back at the TARDIS, to make sure he could still see it. After they made their way up the hill, there was a flat clearing, with more small piles all around. He looked back one more time, and couldn’t see anything from the TARDIS, not even the faintest glow. He felt uneasy about leaving it entirely behind. There wasn’t much in the way of landmarks.

“Are we sure this thing’s working?” Graham held up the detector.

Ryan shrugged. “The lights are on.” 

He harrumphed. “I wish she’d explained this better. She never explains anything enough.”

“It’s probably over our heads,” he said. He felt awkward, unsure of what to say, the discomfort in the pit of his stomach. They hadn’t spent a lot of time one on one in the past few months. They mostly spent time together when they were traveling with the Doctor, and she filled up most of the conversation by telling them about things they were seeing. Or they had a more immediate matter at hand, such as hostile aliens. But to be here, looking around with nothing, not even anything interesting to examine, the silence grew uncomfortable. 

“Wonder what Nan would say about this place.” He looked at what appeared to be a children’s toy at his feet, covered in dust. “Probably that it needs a good cleaning.” 

Graham chuckled. “Yeah. She always got on your case about your room, didn’t she?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. He’d never kept his room up to her standards. He felt bad about it now. 

They lapsed into silence again. Graham took this as an encouraging sign. They were connecting over something besides a pregnant Gifftan man. He asked, “Why don’t you ever talk about her?”

The question caught him off guard, and he felt a lump in his throat. “I-I don’t see the point. Doesn’t change anything.” 

“It’s what keeps her with us.”

“She’s not, though.” Truthfully, it was easier, in many ways, not to mention Nan, despite how much he missed her. He’d been through it before when he lost his mum. He knew how people reacted; they said they were sorry and they treated you with pity, and he didn’t want either.

Both men were so immersed in their thoughts, they didn’t hear the footsteps trailing behind them.

—  
Yaz walked along with the Doctor, holding up her torch to their surroundings, straining as they walked up the hill. The TARDIS had landed in a valley of sorts, with hills on both sides. She looked at the piles of what she presumed were lost objects, though most of them she couldn’t identify.

“Doctor, what are all these things?” she asked. “Are these things from Earth’s past? Or future?” 

She glanced at the nearest pile, holding up the detector. “Probably not from Earth at all. This dimension spans our whole universe, Yaz.”

“Oh, right.” She felt stupid for not having realized that. 

“Doesn’t map exactly to our universe either. It shifts. A part that was near Earth may drift over to another galaxy. Shifting like the plates of the Earth’s crust.”

She stayed close to the Doctor, nearly touching. She didn’t want to stray too far. They’d been to a lot of scary places, but this one was creeping her out more than any of the others. Was it the blackness? Was it the danger? She squared her shoulders. _Come on Khan. You’re not a child afraid of the dark._. 

Behind her, she heard a soft rumble, and nearly jumped out of her skin. “What was that?!”

The Doctor turned around, flashing her torch. “Think it was just a pile settlin’. Are you all right, Yaz? You seem a little jumpy.”

“I don’t like this place,” she admitted. “It’s just so…” she searched for the right word “empty. Like I’m staring into nothing.”

“You feel it too, huh?” The Doctor said. “Think this is how it works. An empty dimension with no native matter is an unnatural state, and it’s sucking things in.”

Yaz nodded, as if she understood. Talking about what this place was didn’t help her uneasiness, and she felt angry at herself at how she was acting. It was nothing, that was all. 

Instead, she turned her anger back to Graham, because it was easier to be angry at him than at herself. “You know, Graham was yelling at me in the TARDIS while you were out of the console room. He didn’t want to come. He said nobody was helping him, after all we’ve done! We went to Grace’s funeral. I’ve tried to be his friend. He’s being so unreasonable!”

“Don’t be too hard on him, Yaz,” the Doctor admonished her. “Grief is unreasonable.”

“What?” she said in surprise. “You didn’t hear the way he was talking to me.” 

“Grief can make you do a lot of things you normally wouldn’t. Lash out at the people you love. Make crazy decisions. Threaten to leave your friend stuck in a volcano.” She looked into the distance, and her face crumpled, as if she were recalling a painful memory. She turned to Yaz. “You’ve never lost anyone you were close to, have you? A member of your immediate family?”

She thought for a moment. “Not really. My granddad-Umbreen’s husband-died when I was very little. I don’t remember him.”

“You’re lucky. You’ve got your mum, your dad and your sister, all together. But sooner or later…” she trailed off. “Maybe a partner. Or a child.” Her voice was barely audible.

She considered this for as they walked along in silence. Mum and Dad being gone some day was unthinkable, even if they annoyed her some times. Maybe she had been too hard on Graham. She thought of what the Doctor said when they’d first met, about how her entire family was gone, and she must have known that type of grief better than anyone.

Why hadn’t she mentioned being married before? Maybe, she was just waiting for someone to ask. Just like Graham. “So, tell me about your wife. Where did you meet her?”

“It was a long time ago. Complicated.” She flashed the torch to the side. “Hmm, wonder how far these walls go up. Maybe a couple kilometers.”

Yaz tried again. “Was she a time traveler, like you?”

“Everyone is a time traveler if they live long enough,” the Doctor said, her voice flat. “They just take the long way around.”

The Doctor didn’t elaborate, which was surprising. She seemed like she was always talking, chattering on about wherever they were or the people she’d met. But really, she realized for the first time, not saying a lot. She didn’t understand it. They were here to get her wedding ring, weren’t they? 

She jumped again when she heard a beep, then realized it was coming from the drogocenium detector.

The Doctor perked up. “We’ve got a signal!” She held out the cube, moving it in a wide arc. “This way!” She picked up her pace, boots leaving dusty footprints. Yaz struggled to keep up with her quick steps. She flashed her torch ahead and saw they were walking on a cliff, a narrow strip overlooking another valley. She felt a bit of ground crumble under her foot; she was too close to the edge. She slowed her face, taking sure-footed steps. “Doctor, be careful!” she called.

The Doctor stopped a metre away from the edge. The beeping intensified. She spun in a slow circle, looking down at the cube. “Got to be here…somewhere….”

Catching up to her, Yaz felt the ground shift slightly beneath her feet. She looked down. The strip of cliff they stood on wasn’t much larger than the full span of her arms. Degraded objects turned to dirt on top of dirt on top of dirt. Possibly here for millions of years. She hoped it was stable.

It wasn’t.

She heard a loud rumble, and saw the Doctor fall straight down, the cliff crumbling beneath her. She spun around, turned to head the opposite direction, but she found her steps sinking as the cliff gave way. And then she sliding down the cliff screaming, in blackness. She flailed her arms out, trying to catch something, anything, but only grasped dirt. Digging in her heels had the same effect.

The fall didn’t last for more than a few seconds before she hit the bottom, fell face forward, and lost consciousness.

—

Ryan was feeling the same discomfort Yaz was, but he attributed it to the conversation with Graham rather than Straconya itself. He checked his phone timer. Just under an hour left. He was about to suggest they turn back when he heard a low growl. He stopped. “What was that?”

Graham looked alarmed. “Think it’s one of those monsters the Doctor talked about?”

“I hope not.” He looked from side to side, slowly, searching for signs of movement. Ahead and to the right, he saw a pair of glowing red eyes in the dark. 

He didn’t dare move. “Something over there. To the right.”

“What do we do?”

“Not a clue.” He slowly turned his head to look, but couldn’t make anything out besides the eyes. “No sudden moves.” He had no idea if that made a difference, but it was all he could think of.

Graham slipped his phone out of his pocket. ”I’ll call her.”

“There’s no signal down here, Graham.” Ryan reminded him. “Besides, they might’ve gotten caught by one of these things”

“You always look on the bright side, don’t you son?” 

Ryan was too scared for _son_ to register. Before he could reply, they heard another noise from behind them. “What was that?”

Graham’s eyes widened in fear. “We’re not surrounded, are we?”

Then they heard quick steps coming from behind. Thinking it was the Doctor, he turned around to see the figure of a man standing a few metres away.

“Don’t move,” he warned.


	5. Chapter 5

“Be very quiet,” the stranger said. “Those things,” he gestured to the pair of red eyes, “will come after ya. They’ve come lookin’ for a meal. Don’t move ‘til I tell you to.”

The man approached. Ryan studied him, as best as he could in the dim light from his torch. He looked to be maybe forties. He had black hair, matted around his shoulders, though the top of his head was bald, and a lengthy beard. He had a crazed look in his brown eyes. 

The man reached deep into one of the bags in around his waist. In a flash, he hurled something about the size of a football through the air. “This way!” he pointed to a large rock structure. Ryan and Graham followed him as fast as they could. Ryan heard the steps of the beast come to a sudden stop. 

They reached the rock structure and peeked from behind. The beast appeared to be chewing on the thing the man had thrown.

“Them beasties feed on the stuff here. I call ‘em Scavengers.” he whispered. “Always carry somethin’ with me. Keeps them off my hide.” He flashed a nearly toothless grin. “Be very quiet and still. Hopefully it’ll be satisfied and go away. New here, I take it?” They nodded. “You lot got sucked in too? Never seen two people come at once.”

“Not exactly. I’m Ryan, and this is Graham.” He kept his eyes on the Scavenger. The chewing sounds stopped, followed by a huff. It trotted off in a different direction. He let out a sigh of relief.

“Good It’s gone,” he nodded, smiling. “Tobias, by the way.” 

“How’d you get here, mate? We weren’t expecting to see another person,” Graham said.

“Got piss drunk one night. Last thing I remember was falling asleep at m’ bus stop.” 

“How long ago was that?”

He shrugged. “No way to tell, really. Ain’t no sunshine here, no seasons. The year” he paused a moment to think, “was 2015.”

_Four years_. Graham’s mind boggled. He remembered the Doctor saying time may not operate by the same rules here. Maybe he’d hadn’t been here that long. 

Maybe he’d been here longer.

“How….” Ryan wasn’t sure how to finish.

“Do I live here? Lad, one man’s trash in another man’s treasure. Food pops up, sometimes it’s even halfway decent. And if I don’t find any, no mind. Got plenty of things to amuse myself with.”

“Are there other people here?”

“Yeah, every now and then. Again, hard to tell. Haven’t seen anyone in a while. Most of them fall to the Scavengers.” He pointed in the direction of where the eyes had been. “Not me. I’m better than that. Stick with me and I’ll make sure they don’t get you too.”

“We’re not staying. We came with a friend. She can get you out of here,” Graham said. They may not be able to find the ring, but they’d found a person who needed help. They were running out of time anyway. They should head back to the TARDIS. “If you come with us…”

“No.” 

“What?”

“What do I need to go back there for? Nothin’ there for me.” His arms, previously relaxed at his sides, tensed up, his fists in balls. “Family’s gone. Ain’t never had a girl who cared for me. Spent the best years of my life workin’ in call centers, one missed paycheck away from homelessness. Doubt they even noticed I stopped showing up.” 

“There must be someone,” Ryan said. ”Friends? Neighbors?”

“Nope. Not really. Few casual mates from the pub, doubt they noticed either.” He said with a note of sorrow.

The words hit Graham like a ton of bricks. It hadn’t occurred to him a place for things that were lost or forgotten would include people, too. He thought of Missing Persons cases that were never solved, homeless people huddled in doorways. The Doctor said she was all about helping people, but she didn’t seem to stay in any place very long. If she brought him back to Earth, would she help him get a council flat, a new job? He doubted it. “Doesn’t it get lonely?” he asked.

“Never been much of a people person. I don’t need them. Lousy sods.” He puffed out his chest. “I was a nobody there! Now look at me, I’ve got a whole kingdom!”

A kingdom of trash, Ryan thought. Still, he thought he could convince Tobias to come back to the TARDIS. For all of his bravado, he wanted to be needed. “Why don’t you come with us to meet our friend? You know, in case we see one of the Scavengers again?”

“Sure thing, lad,” he replied “Lead the way.”

—

“Yaz? Yaz, wake up!” 

Yaz opened her eyes, and panicked for a moment when all she saw was blackness. Then she remembered where she was. The cavern. Darkness. Sliding the cliff. Her body ached all over. 

She felt a warm hand on the back of her head. She pushed herself up on her forearms, looking up. The Doctor was staring down at her, worried. From what she could see, her clothes and hair were covered in dirt. “You nearly got buried alive there. Are you all right?”

She tried to speak, but coughed. Dirt had filled her mouth. She reached a dirt covered arm to clean it off her tongue. “I’m okay, I think.” Her voice was raspy, throat dry. She needed to start carrying a water bottle on these trips. “You went straight down, how did you…”

“Much sturdier body. Plus, the dirt isn’t packed tightly and broke some of the impact.” The Doctor studied her with a grim expression. “Can you get up?”

“Let me try.” She pulled herself to a kneeling position and brushed the dirt off her top. Taking the Doctor’s outstretched hand, she slowly pulled herself up. Her knees and ankles complained. “Okay, I’m standing. How do we get back up?”

“I’m…not sure.” She admitted, pointing her torch upwards. “Here’s what’s left of the cliff. No handholds, probably as unstable as what we were standin’ on before.” 

Yaz realized then she didn’t have her torch. It must be buried somewhere, underneath the dirt. But she didn’t even know where to start looking. She pulled out her phone, thinking she could use the light. The first thing she saw when she turned it on was the timer.

“We have forty-five minutes, Doctor,” she said, showing her the phone. Not a lot of time to figure out how to get back to the TARDIS before the stabilizers gave way. Uneasiness crept back into her gut, but whether it was from Straconya itself or being trapped, she couldn’t say. 

The Doctor didn’t answer. Instead she cocked her head to one side. “Wait, do you hear that? No? Right, human hearing is notoriously subpar.”

“Hear what?” She hadn’t heard anything.

The Doctor didn’t answer. Instead, she knelt down a few metres away and started digging frantically, like a dog burying a bone. Yaz watched with part curiosity, part annoyance. Why was she playing in the dirt when they needed to find a way to escape? She felt tears welling in her eyes. She was going to die here, in this godforsaken dimension, and nobody knew where she’d gone. Why hadn’t she told Mum and Dad the truth about the Doctor? Why had she wasted time arguing over petty nonsense with Sonya? She blinked back the tears. She didn’t want the Doctor to see her cry. 

Then she saw a glow in the ground. “The drogocenium detector! It got buried when the cliff collapsed.” She pulled it out of the dirt, grinning. “And it’s beeping like mad! See, I was in the right place, just a a little too high.”

She took a few cautious steps, studying the cube. The beeping increased in frequency. “Oh, this must be it! Yaz, hold these,” she thrust the cube and torch into her hands and resumed her frantic digging. Yaz tapped her foot as she held the torch. She was well acquainted with the Doctor’s single-minded focus at this point, but what good would her ring do if they were stuck here forever? 

“Here it is!” The Doctor jumped up. Her expression was awestruck, nearly reverent. She brushed the dirt off as best she could with her hands, and held the ring up for Yaz to see. It was a gold band with a green stone. 

“It’s beautiful, Doctor.” She smiled, trying to be happy for her friend, but her insides were shaking. 

The Doctor held the ring to her chest, closing her eyes, looking more emotional than Yaz had ever seen her. “I love it,” she whispered.

—

Ryan checked the timer on his phone as they walked through a clearing, free of almost everything but dusty ground. Twenty minutes left. He saw the hill they’d come up, on which the other side was the TARDIS. At least, he hoped it was the right hill. He tried to quell the knot in his stomach by telling himself they’d be back within its walls soon. They’d be safe, and they could leave.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans. 

Tobias put out an arm, stopping him and Graham. “Scavenger. Ahead.” Voice quiet, he pointed ahead. Ryan strained to see the glowing eyes. “When I give the word, we turn around and run.”

“We can’t go back.” Ryan started to protest. “The TARDIS is…”

“Shhhh. There ain’t no place to hide, lad. Going backwards is our only hope.” 

Ryan looked to Graham, as if to see if he had another idea. Graham stared ahead, saying nothing. It was going to cost them some time, maybe too much time. But they had no choice.

“Count of three, we turn around. Slow and quiet,” Tobias whispered. “One, two three…”

They turned to find another Scavenger staring at them, eyes glowing like burnt coals, three meters away. 

A low growl emerged from its chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am absolutely amazed at the response to this. Thank you for all the kudos and lovely comments!


	6. Chapter 6

“Doctor,” Yaz said, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you found your ring, but we don’t have much time left and we need to find a way back up!”

“Right. Fortunately, we may have provided one for us. Come on, Yaz!” She rushed to the cliffside. Holding the ring up again, the Doctor pulled her sonic out of her pocket and started scanning the ring. An image appeared on the wall. “Causing vibrations in drogocenium can act like an X-ray, allowing us to detect openings. River was an archaeologist. She used this trick all the time to find hidden rooms, though she had a sonic trowel. Sonic trowel! Ridiculous!” She was talking too fast for Yaz to take everything in. River? Archaeologist? _Sonic trowel?_

The sonic buzzed. “Right on this spot!” She changed the sonic setting, pointed it at ring again, and part of the wall crumbled, leaving a small tunnel. 

Yaz felt a spark of hope, but remained skeptical. “Will this hold?”

“Probably not for long. Let’s go!” The Doctor rushed down the tunnel. Yaz followed her as fast as she could, wincing a bit with every step, pushed forward by renewed hope. 

—  
“What do we do?” Graham asked. 

“We need to get to the TARDIS.” Ryan was firm. “I say we go in that direction. Maybe we throw somethin’ at each, like you did before and then we make a run for it?”

“Worth a try.” Tobias nodded. He handed one of the bags on his belt to Ryan, and took a few steps forward. He lined up the throw, drew his arm back…

…only to be mauled from the side by a third Scavenger, jumping through the air. He let out a piercing scream.

It came so close, Ryan could practically reach out to touch it. He saw a huge black shape, fast as lightning, and bigger than a horse. The beast carried Tobias to the other side of the clearing, the screaming diminishing as he moved further away, then stopping altogether. They turned their eyes away, even though they weren’t able to see anything. The guttural noises from the Scavenger echoing across the clearing were horrible enough. 

Ryan’s attention snapped back to their predicament. A Scavenger ahead of them, and presumably, behind them. Not wanting to make too many moves, he flung the entire bag behind him as hard as he could. He heard the thud as it hit the ground, and the movement of feet.

Graham looked behind it. “Good work, son. He’s goin’ after it.”

“But we still have one more.” And the red glowing eyes were plainly visible now, glowing, becoming too large too quickly.

Graham shuddered. He looked at Ryan, a mixture of pain and resignation. No sense in both of them dying. “You go. I’ll distract him.” 

Ryan shook his head. It was unthinkable. “We stick together. Besides, Tobias didn’t have the market cornered on garbage.” He scanned the ground. He grabbed the nearest thing he could find, it looked like melted plastic, and flung it at the beast.

It stopped a few feet short. The beast grabbed the plastic, and chewed. 

“It’s working.” He let out a breath. “What else we got?”

“Here!” Graham knelt down. “No idea what this is, but have at it!” 

They kept throwing things, everything they could find. Ryan had no idea how they’d get past the beast, but they were holding it off. For now. Until they came up with a better plan. 

“Don’t see anything else.” Graham said, after they’d exhausted the area. “Now what?” The Scavenger was moving towards them again.

“We’ve got more stuff.” Ryan shrugged out of his coat, flinging it at the beast. He emptied his pockets. He reached for the slim rectangle of his phone. He hated to lose it, but it was better than dying. “The detector!” Without arguing, Graham chucked through the air.

The creature, briefly satiated, was coming for them again. Just metres away. Both men froze. Ryan felt his heart hammering in his chest.

Then they heard the wheezes and groans of the TARDIS. 

“The TARDIS!” Graham exclaimed “But where is it?” He looked around, but he couldn’t see it. 

The Scavenger stopped, staring, confused by the strange sound. But only for a moment. Then it stared at the men, poised, ready to leap. The Doctor was too late. No way they could get to the TARDIS from here. 

The creature sailed through the air…

…and slammed into one of the crystal pillars of the console room as it shimmered in front of them, materializing into existence.

Graham let out a shudder of relief. He felt like he could collapse. It wasn’t until a moment later that he realized _The TARDIS can materialize around us?_

“Looks like our timing is perfect!” The Doctor exclaimed from the console. Her face was smudged with dirt, and her coat was torn. “I love it when I do that.”

“Doctor!” Ryan exclaimed. “How did you find us?”

“Scanned for your life signs. Not too many within walking distance.” She moved swiftly from the console, examining the creature. 

“Doc, don’t touch it! You have to get that thing out of here!” Graham said with alarm. “It tried to kill us!”

She knelt down and pulled out the sonic. “It’s not moving. Got knocked out when it hit the pillar.” She ran the sonic over the creature, her expression full of curiosity. Under the better lighting, they could see now the Scavenger was in fact black, with smooth, hairless skin. Long muscular legs were complemented by its large jowls. Graham shuddered again, thinking of how close he’d been to being at its mercy.

She ran back to the console, hit a few switches, and a green light appeared around the beast. “It’s in a stasis field. It’ll stay here when we dematerialize, which we should do because we have about…” she looked in the console “three minutes left before the stabilizers fail.” She looked to the men, concerned. “Are you okay?” 

“We are now, Doc.” Graham. “Thanks.”

Ryan realized he hadn’t seen Yaz. He found her sitting on the side of a pillar, covered in dirt like the Doctor. “What happened to you?”

“Took a bit of a fall. Trip back was a bit rough too.” The tunnel had gotten very small, to the point where they had to crawl, which hadn’t helped her knees. The Doctor had widened it a bit with the sonic. Finally, they’d burst open to the other side of the hill. She’d never been so glad to see that blue box waiting for them in the clearing. “But I’ll be okay.” 

“Doctor, we had to throw the drogo..thingie at the beast so it wouldn’t attack us.” Ryan explained. “Did you find your ring?”

“Yeah.” She gave a small smile. “I did.”

—  
The trip out of Straconya was easy compared to their previous one. A few gentle bumps, and the Doctor announced they were back in their own dimension. As she steered, she asked Ryan and Graham a lot of questions about the Scavengers. They told everyone about Tobias and what had happened to him.

“Hmm, creature that feeds off lost objects from our world?” she paused, deep in thought. “Wonder if they’re using all the spatio-temporal particles it picks up as a source of energy. Interestin’. May have to make another trip.”

“We’ll stay at home next time, Doctor,” Ryan chuckled. “Right, Graham?” But Graham wasn’t paying attention. Yaz kept looking over to him, still keeping an uneasy distance across the console room, but now with sorrow rather than anger. 

It was ridiculous to fight with her, or to keep pretending she wasn’t there. He thought of Tobias, alone in this world and the one they’d left. He never wanted to end up like that. He approached her, slowly, as if not wanting to scare off a wild animal. “Yaz, I’m sorry about earlier.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so hard on you. You were right..I have no idea how it is.” She paused, in thought. “Tell me something about Grace. Anything. Even something small.”

He said the first things that came to mind. “She made an amazing Yorkshire pudding. She always ended up with all the blankets somehow. Can’t even count so many times I woke up freezing my arse off in the middle of the night.”

She laughed a little. “She didn’t!”

“Yeah, she did. She was always trying to get me to help her in the garden. ‘Graham, you can’t spend all afternoon watching football.’, she’d say.”

Ryan, who had been watching the conversation unfold, joined them. “She was good at using technology. I mean, really good. Most old people aren’t, you know.” He nodded at Graham.

“Hey!” Graham interrupted. “Just because I don’t spend all day on YouTube doesn’t mean I’m bad at using technology!” 

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Anyway, she even showed me how to use some of the features on my phone.” 

The three of them stood together, talk about Grace interspersed with laughter. Out of the corner of her eye, Ryan saw the Doctor watching them, her face twisted in anguish. She saw him looking back, and she wasn’t even trying to hide it any more. Then, with a sudden move, she pulled a lever on the console, and the engines stopped.

“Everything all right, Doctor?” Yaz asked. She wasn’t sure she asking about the TARDIS or herself.

She paused for a moment, unsure of how to answer. “Yeah. Just parked for a moment.” They fell silent as she approached the group. Pulling the ring out of her pocket, she looked down at it, a rare moment of quiet stillness. She looked up, eyes shining with tears held back.

“Her name was River Song,” She spoke quietly, unsteady, uncertain. “Professor of archaeology. Met her in a 51st century library.” She looked to her friends, who watched her in quiet astonishment, before continuing.”Big fan of Stevie Wonder. She spent her life thinking I didn’t love her. I spent two dozen years proving her wrong.”

Yaz asked the first question. “How long were you married?”

“Hard to say, really. Married her while time was broken. Kept meetin’ her out of order.”

“Was she a time traveler, like you?” Ryan asked.

“There’s nobody like River. But yeah, she did a fair share of it.” 

“What did she look like?”

Without a word, she hit a button on the console, and the holographic image of a woman appeared. Head full of blond curls, expression full of confidence.

“So she was human,” Ryan said.

“Mostly.” Her lips formed a tight line, and he sensed this was something she didn’t want to share. He didn’t press further.

Turning off the hologram, she turned over the ring in her hands, looking down. “Don’t know what to do with this now. Can’t wear it. Resizing would ruin it. Feels wrong, tossin’ it away in a box somewhere. Might as well have left it in Straconya.”

“I have a suggestion.” Graham pulled out the chain around his neck, revealing the frog charm at the end. “This belonged to Grace. I gave it to her one year for Christmas. I keep it with me to remind me of her. Maybe…you could do something like that? Lots of widows wear their husbands’ ring on a chain. Something like that.” 

She gave them a full smile this time. “Yeah. I like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! Thank you so much for reading. Perhaps I'll resurrect my abandoned WIP where River actually appears :)

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. I'm tentatively planning to do the updates on Tuesdays and Fridays each week, so the story will finish prior to the S12 premiere.
> 
> ETA: A special thanks to hetzi_clutch for discussion about the concept, and NateTheWolf for beta reading a portion of this work.


End file.
